


Dear Friends and Ruin

by Minerva McTabby (McTabby)



Category: A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Angst, Backstory, M/M, Pre-Canon, Victorian, Yuletide 2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-27
Updated: 2010-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:09:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McTabby/pseuds/Minerva%20McTabby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The backstory of Sara's father and the Indian gentleman, from their school days to the diamond mines disaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Friends and Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Miss Minchin dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken filled her with alarm.
> 
> "What were his business troubles?" she said. "What were they?"
> 
> "Diamond mines," answered Mr. Barrow, "and dear friends - and ruin."
> 
>  _A Little Princess_ , Chapter 7

They parted with a handshake that day. He was certain of that much, afterwards, though he could recall neither Crewe's final words nor his own. Lost, all lost in the mist over his memories, and there was another torment among many: to think what he might have said or done, had he known it was the last time he'd ever see Ralph Crewe.

All he remembered was a hand clasping his, and anxious blue eyes in a face already touched by unnatural color, faint and fatal.

He must have said something, surely, summoning hollow reassurance through the pounding in his own temples before walking out into the merciless sunlight. "It'll be all right" - no more than that, most likely. Not _forgive me_ , or _love_ , or _good-bye_.

And Crewe would have answered, "I trust you, Tom." Of course.

The telegram arrived that very afternoon.

* * * * *

 

"Hello!" says a cheery voice.

Carrisford doesn't look up. It's the first week of the Michaelmas half, two days into his public-school career, two hours since he picked and lost his first fight. He's chosen a corner of the day-room to nurse a black eye and ponder injustice.

"Hello." Two syllables, brusquely discouraging, muttered over the Latin grammar-book he isn't reading.

"I say," the voice continues. "Come and have tea?"

Carrisford looks up, scowling. The house is full of strangers, and they're probably all making fun of him. No, he _won't_ have _tea_ with -

"My name's Crewe," says the boy, who is easily tall enough to wear tails. He has fair hair and a pleasant, open face, and a smile that declares refusal unthinkable.

Half an hour later Carrisford finds himself in the school shop, sharing tea and toast with Crewe and two other boys from their house, one of them in Middle Fourth like himself. Somehow he finds himself relating the story of his fist-fight, drawn on by eager questions and admiring remarks, until he gets to the blow that knocked him down - a jolly good whack, it was! - and suddenly he's laughing, Crewe's laughing, Wilkinson claps him on the back and offers him a toffee, and the world looks an awful lot brighter.

As Carrisford will discover, Crewe has a gift for making such things happen.

But that is where it begins, and that is the image he recalls from the earliest time: surly, skinny little Tom Carrisford in his short jacket, sallow and dark-haired, ready to follow Crewe's golden splendor around the school, onto the cricket pitch, into one scrape after another... through all the circles of hell, if need be (when the History master speaks of Richard the Lionheart, Carrisford can picture him with no trouble). Both of them Lower boys, but Crewe a year older and two removes ahead; each finding the other remarkably congenial, if often incomprehensible.

They couldn't be more different.

It has to do with ambition and dignity, or character - or simply what each of them wants, perhaps. Carrisford has a quick temper and craves a great deal from life; Crewe has a keen interest in the world around him and no apparent aims beyond enjoying it.

One evening that winter, they are each given a swishing by the house captain: Carrisford for cheek, Crewe for leading a game of top hat football along the corridor. Six strokes of the cane, with all members of the Library looking on; then the test of enduring evening prayers before they drag their sore bums to Crewe's room.

"Beastly luck," says Crewe, opening a tin of biscuits to share with the other boys who drop in to commiserate. He seems quite effortlessly amused by the whole thing.

"Hm," says Carrisford. The proper air of nonchalance eludes him.

"All right?"

"...Yes." And it's true, after a few minutes of silence and a pleasant daydream of himself in a few years' time: captain of the first eleven, president of Pop, the king of the school meting out punishment to awestruck Lower boys.

Still, he knows that no such thoughts are passing through the head of Crewe, who lies on the rug, on his stomach, calmly reading a magazine. Crewe, who is more likely to achieve it all. Crewe, whose circumstances already leave many boys gazing enviously (especially those burdened with strict fathers): no parents, only a succession of benign guardians, and the large fortune made by his paternal grandfather will be his outright when he turns eighteen.

If he didn't like Crewe so much, Carrisford would be _very_ envious.

All he has behind him is an old name and a drafty, dilapidated manor in a dim corner of Shropshire, full of dreary relations who have never emerged from the era of George III. Carrisford wants something else. Something more. He _wants_ it - glory, beauty, wealth, power, anything and everything that isn't provincial and threadbare - and Ralph Crewe is the first light shining before him on that path.

That is where it begins.

The months go by, and then the years, and Carrisford doesn't know if he wants to watch Crewe, or be him, or own him - but if all the world were his, he'd lay it at Crewe's feet.

 

* * * * *

 

The fear surged up and took hold of him, there on the front steps of his bungalow, as soon as he read the telegram from Sambalpur. Before reading it again, he went inside and locked the door of his room and sat down. Before reading it a third time, he slopped some whisky into a glass and drank.

No money, it told him.

No diamonds.

The end of their dream. The end of everything, except fear.

He poured again, and drank. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Whatever would he tell Crewe? How...? He'd concealed the worst of it this past month or more, so that Crewe had only a vague apprehension (bad enough) of what haunted Carrisford in vivid detail night and day, making sleep an almost-forgotten luxury. But there was nothing to be done; they were in too deep to go back now. They had to press on, and hope.

It was the end of hope. He had to tell Crewe.

He couldn't begin to imagine how do it.

The house was oddly silent, with the flapping punkah fan making the only sound. It brought no relief from the sweltering heat that threatened to suffocate him. Trapped. Trapped in this hell, with no more strength to hold the fear at bay, and only the one diamond in his pocket, mocking him.

He'd promised Crewe that it would be all right. _Promised_.

What the devil was he going to do?

More whisky. He poured it, drank, and cradled his aching head in his hands.

 

* * * * *

 

They spend over an hour at the nets, bowling and batting in turn, then race each other back to the house and up the stairs to Carrisford's room. As they stumble through the door together, both are laughing - though Carrisford's temper hasn't cooled entirely.

He shuts the door and locks it.

Turning, he finds Crewe watching him with a charming half-grin and a familiar "you can't stay cross with me for long" expression in his brilliant blue eyes.

All too true. One look, and desire steals Carrisford's breath more completely than running up any number of stairs.

Ralph Crewe, eighteen and perfect and _his_ : the house cricket captain in white flannels, arms bare to the elbow, sweeping the cap from his flaxen hair. Carrisford wants to reach out and take, take -

Crewe reads it in him, and the expression deepens to a hot teasing gleam meant for all of Carrisford, from head to toe, and it's likely to kill him if he can't _touch_ -

But there are rules here, customs for this kind of friendship, as in all else. Discretion is everything (they have been discreet, for Crewe was elected into Pop with no objections at all); but convention also has it that the elder boy seduces the younger, not the other way around - so Carrisford does the done thing, as always, waiting for a signal.

A hand on his shoulder.

It's enough: he slams Crewe's back against the locked door and kisses him fiercely, blocking out a stab of memory that tells him this Summer half is his friend's last term. Crewe is hard in welcome, tasting of sweat and triumph, pushing up to meet him and grasping Carrisford's hips to bring him even nearer. They are the same height now, though Carrisford is still rake-thin, and they stay like that for a long wild moment measured in minutes or years - mouth on mouth and cock along cock, writhing together in their need.

"What you want..." Crewe's broken whisper is a flame against his skin. " _Tell_ me, Tom - "

 _I want a million pounds and a magic carpet and you at my side forever_ , he answers silently, fumbling at the opening of Crewe's cricket bags, sending a button skittering across the floor. Another kiss - and he pulls back, his gaze on Crewe's lips as they part in an aching gasp.

At times he's wondered if Crewe might want to bugger him. Some boys do that, he knows, and the prospect fills him with a fearful kind of curiosity; but Crewe never asks. They explore each other with their hands, or sometimes (daringly) their mouths, and this is one of his particular fancies: watching what his touch can do to Crewe. Now he feels himself grow even harder as he watches Crewe gaze at the ceiling, dreamy-eyed, bruised mouth parting in a smile or twisting helplessly... one expression of longing replacing another with every stroke of Carrisford's hand on his cock, over and over, until he comes with a shout and a laugh. Then Carrisford thrusts against his thigh, once - twice - thrice, bringing wet fingers to Crewe's mouth and his own, clinging, shaking, his face hidden against Crewe's shoulder.

If time stood still right now, it would be perfect; but time does not oblige.

"Why the Army?" His voice is still hoarse, but he has to ask.

Down at the cricket nets, Crewe - young, rich, handsome, independent Crewe - had mentioned casually that he would take the entrance examination for Sandhurst over summer, with the aim of becoming an officer. This had sparked Carrisford's temper, not least because Crewe had never spoken of any such plan before.

"Why not? It sounds like a grand life."

"But you could do _anything_..."

"So I'll do this." Crewe stretches, shrugs, and starts to fasten his trousers.

Try as he might, Carrisford never gets any other explanation.

 

* * * * *

 

Nightfall found him lying on his bed in the same stifling room, empty glass balanced on his bare chest. That morning, the hours before the telegram came, seemed to belong to another life. Mortal terror did curious things to the passage of time.

It was full dark, but he didn't move. Only his thoughts dashed back and forth, seeking escape, balked at every turn.

Heat. Damnable, impossible heat.

A summer in Calcutta had proved to be worse than he could have imagined... but it was convenient to the mines, and the mines were everything, so he stayed - and Crewe stayed, for the mines and for him.

He had to go to Crewe. Had to tell, tell him, confess, _all gone_ -

Could not.

He fought off an odd wave of nausea; it passed, leaving him trembling.

Must.

He would get up and go to Crewe, and tell him straight out: _I failed. I've ruined you. It's my fault._ Then Crewe would turn away -

Could not.

Another wave, this one making him groan and roll over to retch nothing but whisky onto the floor. And it was at this vile moment that a new thought bloomed from his self-loathing, astonishing him with its brilliant simplicity: _he would go_.

He was the problem. Everything ruined. His fault.

No Carrisford, no problem.

Then he was standing, somehow, groping around for a shirt, shouting for his bearer - that's what they called the butler-valet chaps here, Crewe had hired this one for him, decent fellow, spoke English well enough, reminded him of his scout at Oxford, he'd never kept a valet - where was the man? He was burning up. He had to leave, had to go, tonight, right now... He called again and the bearer came in, eyebrows rising in astonishment when Carrisford issued orders.

No, sahib did not want dinner. No, he didn't want a shave. He wanted his bag and his travel bedding, and a first-class ticket on the very next train to anywhere, and another bottle of whisky for the journey.

He didn't want to be here any more. Didn't want to _be_ , at all.

 

* * * * *

 

"Have you heard about Crewe?"

Carrisford pauses by the door, balancing two plates of vanilla ice. Although the question isn't addressed to him, the name is enough to make him stop and listen for a moment. An old habit, no more.

The second voice belongs to a man who's in the same college, his rooms right above Carrisford's own. "Ralph Crewe?" he asks, sounding mildly interested.

"The very man. He's gone and got married, by Jove!"

Two more couples sweep into the music room, where supper is laid out. They brush past Carrisford as if he were a marble statue. He cannot be otherwise.

"Good Lord. He's what, nineteen? Twenty?"

Twenty, last month. Not a word from him, for fifteen months. Not that Carrisford is counting.

"...Who is she, anyone we know?"

The first man laughs. "Not at all. Picked her up in France, I hear - governess or some such thing. Hasn't a penny."

"Good Lord."

Carrisford sets the plates down and makes for the front door, feeling no great obligation to his partner of the evening; the only reason for his presence at the elder Meredith daughter's coming-out ball is that her brother was instructed to round up some chums from Oxford.

Later on, he'll hear several other versions of how a new officer went to the Continent for a fortnight's holiday and came back with a wife, just in time to join his regiment and sail for the East. Another episode in Crewe's career of doing exactly as he pleased. There was no one to stop him, after all.

It is, perhaps, only a coincidence that Carrisford comes down from Oxford within a month of Pamela Meredith's ball, not even completing his first year.

He arrives in London in a blazing temper, making a point of tearing up his father's last letter and throwing the pieces in the Thames. Farewell to long-winded advice on what to read, eat, drink, wear, and think, accompanied by peevish refusals of every request for another fifty pounds. Farewell to other people's plans for his life.

They can give the estate to some second cousin; Tom Carrisford isn't going back. He looks at London, and sets out to find his fortune.

 

* * * * *

 

With the other upper berth unoccupied, he could ignore the snoring from the two lower berths and almost imagine himself alone on the train: a tiny island of flickering light rushing through the darkness. At first the thought appealed to him, but as the hours pass the impression of solitude enveloped and drowned him, turning into something terrible.

The train wheels clattered, the windows and air-slats rattled in their frames; gibberish sound, like a thousand people chattering, accusing, mocking.

 _Tom, Tom, the piper's son,  
Stole a pig and away he did run..._

His throat felt far too dry, and his head ached worse than ever. He rubbed his eyes and took another drink, straight from the bottle.

There had been a tussle of wills at the railway station when he'd insisted that his bearer stay behind. Outrageous - not the done thing at all - no Englishman traveled without a servant in attendance...! All true, but then, Carrisford wasn't traveling. He was _leaving_.

He couldn't quite recall where he was going. Did it matter? Were they cackling at him again, those hordes just beyond the dim circle of lamp-light? East or west, Rangoon or Bombay, he'd find out when he got there...

 _Tom, Tom, the piper's son!_

Laughter, somewhere.

No matter. All over. No going back.

 

* * * * *

 

When Carrisford goes out to India, he is thirty years old: poised, elegant, successful, and no man's fool.

Making this journey isn't foolish in the least. The project is well advanced, the real work set to begin, and it's only proper for the one who has planned and organized it all to be there now. It's his money, after all, accumulated over a decade of buying and selling, then advising others on what they should buy and sell. Young as he is, his advice is heeded. A talent, people call it. A gift.

Investing in this project isn't foolish either. He knows land, he knows gems, and he knows enough to hire those with a knowledge greater than his own: the very best experts to study the land and tell him that yes, there are diamonds there in the rock of the Barapahar hills on the Mahanadi River - a great many, most likely. Given sufficient funds, and modern methods... yes. A fortune, his for the taking.

His sole concession to folly is an intention to seek out Ralph Crewe.

At first he rejects the very thought of doing so - yet it nags at him, and the P. and O. steamer _Magnolia_ takes a month to reach Bombay, leaving him plenty of time to daydream. Gradually, he comes to consider it not such a bad idea. There might be some satisfaction in flaunting his own prosperity and sophistication. He could even offer Crewe a share in the diamond mines - with just a touch of condescension, perhaps. The prospect is too tempting.

He has never left England before, and India overwhelms him.

Intoxicated by the warmth of it, the colors and sounds and scents, he spends the two-day train journey from Bombay to Calcutta in a daze of excitement, and arrives with a host of new acquaintances from among his fellow-passengers, both civil and military.

It is one of the latter who invites him to a reception that evening.

It is fate, surely, that brings Crewe to the same function.

He can't believe this, at first - until Hutchens, his new acquaintance, confirms it: yes, the man on that balcony is Captain Crewe - from Colonel Grange's regiment - oh, an old friend?

"We were at school together," Carrisford murmurs. _I loved him, once._

It's all part of the strangeness of India, the magic and otherness of it, that he should find himself standing in this doorway and watching Crewe smoke a cigarette on a balcony. Crewe wears some sort of dress uniform, with a short red jacket and black trousers. He's looking up at the sky, lost in thought. His profile is as handsome as ever.

"Hello."

Crewe turns, his eyes widening in recognition. "Tom! Tom Carrisford, by George!"

As their hands touch - no, even _before_ that first handshake, even as Crewe is turning - Carrisford knows he wants to fuck this man. Knows he _will_ fuck him. Before any words or explanations - laughing in surprise, slightly appalled at himself, half-cursing whatever force has brought him within a thousand miles of Crewe... he knows.

This must be what it's like to find a diamond.

 

* * * * *

 

Hours later, quite suddenly, something changed. In an instant the heat became torture, knifing through his body, splitting his skull. Mute with horror, cringing in pain, he lay there and _knew_ : they would find him. They, they, they! The _things_ waiting for him out there beyond the bottle and the light. This train wasn't a haven at all.

Track him down. Tear him apart. He was certain of it. (Deserved it.)

The knowledge made him move, clumsily - and he fell, tumbling from his narrow bunk, crying out as his body struck the floor. There seemed to be something wrong with his voice, too; it sounded strangely young and lost.

A grumble or two came from the lower berths, subsiding into renewed snores.

It felt like an intervention by Providence when the train pulled into a station a few minutes later. Another chance to escape, to save himself -

He didn't hesitate. Abandoning his bag and everything else, he stumbled off the train and started walking.

 

* * * * *

 

He has arrived in November, at the start of the winter season for Calcutta society; it is a time for pleasure - polo and picnics, dinners and dances and garden parties. Between all this and his business affairs, he barely has time to sleep, and can't remember when he last enjoyed himself so much.

Crewe is an invaluable guide. When Carrisford admires his bungalow and its furnishings, Crewe declares that he shall have one just like it, and he's true to his word: finding a house and hiring the servants, then leading Carrisford all around the city in search of beautiful things to fill it. Yes, he admits he's been feeling a touch of ennui lately - Carrisford's arrival is a godsend, and the diamond mines delight him, and of course he'll put his money into this! How much, where, when - Carrisford can decide it all, since Crewe declares that he's never been able to tell a shilling from a pound, and has no interest in trying.

"It's _there_ , and that's enough for me," he says with all his old nonchalance, and speaks no more of money.

They don't touch. Not yet. Figuratively, they are circling each other - studying the changes that twelve years have wrought.

Crewe _has_ changed, in some ways. That hint of sorrow in him, that pensive expression - they are new, like the silver-framed photographs on his desk. Carrisford keeps a wary distance from all of that, uncertain of his own response. He's grown accustomed to ignoring the memory of Crewe's marriage, but the news of a child makes him uneasy; when Crewe starts to speak of her, Carrisford changes the subject. It's cowardly, he knows, but he can't seem to help it.

So they study each other, as the first weeks go by, and find themselves slipping into old ways of working together, quite easily and pleasantly. There's more than enough to keep them busy now, as mining begins - the grandest game they've ever played.

The grandest aphrodisiac, too.

It begins one evening as they recline in low chairs on Crewe's veranda after a two-day visit to the mines. With boyish glee, Crewe examines a small rough diamond. Carrisford is silent, watching him.

"Why did you never write?" he asks. He's waited twelve years to ask.

"I told myself... it was all part of leaving school." Crewe looks at the diamond in his hand. "Well, people do have such... _affairs_ \- as school-boys - but then one's supposed to grow up, you know."

"So I've never grown up, then. Alas!"

Crewe shrugs, half-laughing.

"Not one letter? Nothing?"

"I _couldn't_." He leans back in his chair, looking straight ahead. "Couldn't even let myself think of it. My God! If you only knew how much I wanted - and even one letter would have done me in - "

Carrisford says nothing. He feels an old grief healing.

"Even when I loved my Marie," says Crewe, meeting his gaze at last, "there was always - that. Always. Yours."

"Always..."

"Yours." There is desire in Crewe's eyes, and loss, and something terribly brave.

"Mine. Really..." A roughness creeps into his voice, barely restrained. "So if I told you to suck my cock - _now_ \- you would do it?"

Crewe looks at him. Stands, slowly. Crosses the space between them, just as slowly, pride and submission in each step. Sinks to his knees, raising his hands to -

Before he can go any further, Carrisford seizes his wrists and takes his mouth, kissing him hard enough to leave them both panting and shaking. Then he drags Crewe to his feet and guides him indoors.

He's waited twelve years to reclaim what is his, and he'll not wait a minute longer.

 

* * * * *

 

 _Tom, Tom, the piper's son!_

The same maddening refrain followed Carrisford along the dark streets of the overgrown village beyond the train station as he walked on and on, driven by pain in his head and desolation in his heart: dimly aware of people pointing at him, stopping to look, or even trying to block his path, amid a torrent of words he couldn't understand - buying or selling, offering their services or their bodies, he neither knew nor cared.

Diamonds. His for the taking. Wealth beyond dreams.

A dog in his path. He tripped - almost fell. Someone laughed, or seemed to laugh, so he turned with a snarl - then the fear took him again and he moved on, faster and faster. He would be tracked, found, caught -

The heat was killing him. Smoke and cow dung, and a cloying jasmine scent everywhere, and people staring - what did they see? A tall, thin man in a white linen suit, hatless, his lank black hair in disarray, staggering through the town as if pursued by the Furies.

 _And away he did run..._

Then he was out of the town, into the woods, and that brought some relief at first, for he felt his strength draining away by the moment and doubted that he could elude the hunters much longer. At least here there might be a snake for him, or a tiger.

He paused to piss against a tree, swayed alarmingly, and forced himself into motion again.

Hot. So hot. Burning.

He pulled off his jacket and flung it aside, then did the same with his waistcoat, tie, and shirt.

Still hot.

Diamonds... he could see them sparkling in the darkness, almost close enough to touch.

"Stop - enough - _sorry_ ," he gasped, reaching out, calling to Crewe and the diamonds, or perhaps to his eerie pursuers. "Stop! _Stop!_ "

And then he did stop, bringing his hands to his face and finding it wet with tears, kneeling, sinking to the ground, going into the darkness.

 

* * * * *

 

Life can be better than he ever imagined it.

The first time he is welcomed inside Crewe's body, he cries out, thrusting deep, drawing an answering sound from Crewe - something wordless and filthy, utterly abandoned. He's made Crewe lean forward, resting his powerful arms on the windowsill to support them both, looking out into the night as he's taken from behind. Nothing, ever, better than this.

That time, and every time, Carrisford is swept by an urge to possess and protect.

The mines seem more promising with every day. A little further, only a little -

A new year begins.

When does it start to go wrong?

Perhaps when Carrisford decides not to cut his losses, not even as the months go by and the great success they seek remains just around the next corner. Crewe trusts him. He's promised to make them both richer than kings. He _can't_ stop now.

Perhaps when they decide to stay in Calcutta for the summer, instead of moving to the hills in April like everyone else - from the viceroy to the lowest clerk. The city turns into a Turkish bath. He barely sleeps, and even then he dreams of the mines.

"We might go back to England, once all this is sorted out," says Crewe. He's noticed Carrisford's growing unease. "I want to see the Little Missus - and show her to you."

But Carrisford is in no mood to talk of the child. Not after the bills he's had to pay that day. And he doesn't want Crewe's attention straying to anyone but himself - not tonight. He keeps Crewe pleading on the edge of release for an indecently long time, using hands and lips and teeth - and takes him again the next morning, before drawing more money from both of them to pay another batch of bills.

 

* * * * *

 

"Sahib..."

"Mother!"

"Sahib!"

"Mother, _Mother_..." Then someone raised his head, and Carrisford's groans turned into a scream.

Voices. He couldn't understand them. There was pain, more and more pain - every joint in his body ached, and if he could have moved, he'd have dashed his own brains out against the nearest wall to stop the agony in his head.

He couldn't move. They lifted him and carried him. He lost consciousness again.

There was a place, somewhere. A room. He was bathed. He screamed and screamed.

"Fever," said another voice. That word was repeated.

He burned, and begged for death.

 

* * * * *

 

When he goes to see Crewe that last morning, no further pretence is possible. Carrisford doesn't even try to deny the disaster looming over them, or conceal his own exhaustion.

Crewe's usual vitality is dulled today, diminished somehow. He complains of a headache. He doesn't seek any reassurances about the mines.

Their passions have become more and more urgent of late, both of them always in a hurry; but not today. They confine themselves to a fervent hand-clasp as Carrisford takes his leave around noon - and he can't help trying to offer some comfort, at the last.

"It'll be all right."

"I trust you, Tom," says Crewe. Of course.

The guilt will kill Carrisford, if nothing else does.

 

* * * * *

 

For a long time, he was not himself. He didn't know how long. Then one day he opened his eyes to find the world still there, and himself still alive, his wits restored to him - enough, if not entirely.

He lay in a sunny room and thought about being alive, and felt the tears come.

The door opened, admitting a stout balding doctor with a large bag. He blinked in astonishment when he saw Carrisford watching him, then smiled broadly.

"Doctor," he said. His voice was barely there.

"Hush now, Mr. Carrisford, you'll be needing your strength - "

" _Doctor_ ," he insisted. It was important; he had to say a name. He remembered it clearly, that name, though everything else seemed a muddle. "C-Crewe," he managed at last. An appeal. "Crewe?"

The compassion in the doctor's eyes was more terrible than words.

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a gift for mamadeb in Yuletide 2005.
> 
> I'd like to thank the Internet for providing a month's worth of background reading about 19th-century Eton, the British Raj, and the history of diamond mining. And much love to Frances Hodgson Burnett for all the fic-enabling hints at a complex backstory for Sara Crewe's parents and the tragically remorseful Carrisford.


End file.
